Month: May 2016

Yes, my mom fat shamed another girl and when asked, she said – “Remember how everyone use to point out your weight? I did it as a revenge.”

I don’t wish ramble all over again on fat shaming. You can read about how I feel about fat shaming here. This post is all about what you can do, instead of going around, body shaming people.

I am 23 years old and coming from an Indian household, I have, uncompromisingly, come to a conclusion that body shaming is aunty-jis’ and uncle-jis’ favourite pastime activity. They can pass comment on just about anything and everything. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong but if you are an Indian, you will find yourself agreeing with me on this. But then again, I am not saying only Indians go through these problems.

” You are too thin, eat more”

“Come inside, you’ll get darker. No one will marry you”

“You should watch what you eat, you’ll put on more weight”

“Why are you so fair? You don’t look ‘Indian’ “

And more…

My mom just, like every other mothers, wanted her daughter to feel better about herself. So, she passed an ignorant remark over a person’s physical attribute. (Un)intentionally, what she did to me, is this – “You are fat too, but hey, it’s okay. You are not alone”.

Amma, you could have just told me to love myself; it is more than just feeling better.

Why is very hard for our society to teach us to love ourselves, just the way we are? Why is it important for them to mould us into a certain beauty standard? Don’t get me wrong. When I say ‘loving yourself’, I am not glorifying obesity or any kind of unhealthy ideas. I cannot stress this enough but no matter how you look, that should not be stopping you from living your life and definitely, it should not allow people to dictate or belittle you. Everyone is fighting their own battle and it is not for others to judge. This is what I mean by LOVING YOURSELF.

Once you have learned to love yourself, you will be truly unstoppable and what others say will not affect you in any way. Why I say this? Because, I have learned to love myself and rocking a pretty good job at it.

So, dear everyone, think again. Is it really worth it to comment on someone, knowingly, that the exact comment will hurt feelings? Just, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.